Catholic smackdown. Just because God knows they deserve it.

Let's just start here, shall we? [All block-quoted emphasis added for maximum derogatory effect.]

How liberals think

Because, as we all know, there's no one more qualified to comment on the "liberal" thought process than someone who doesn't understand it and has nothing but contempt for it. And you just know it all goes downhill from here.

A “progressive” throws down the gauntlet against conservatives, and a Tory picks it up!

You know, from the time they're young, you try to warn them against trying to pet strange dogs, and running with scissors, and sticking their tongues on that metal garden gate in January and yet ... and yet, they still insist on doing incredibly foolish things, like trying to engage in intellectual discourse when they are hopelessly, hilariously unqualified. Oh, well ... live and learn.

Sure – let’s take it a little bit at a time, because your original post (in italics on this page) was a really well articulated, but typical, liberal position:

Ah, yes ... your "typical, liberal position." As opposed to, I'm guessing, the free-wheeling, colourful marketplace of heterogeneous ideas that is Catholicism, is that it?

For conservatives, “positive social change” is a sound goal, ...

Really? I'm guessing that must have happened while I was down the hall getting coffee.

... but basing it solely on “human rights” strikes us as an unecessary, ideologically-driven circumscription.

Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize that the basic concept of "human rights" was ideology-based. My, but we liberals are a narrow-minded lot, aren't we, always whinging on about "human rights" this and "human rights" that. (Technically, you have a point, Mr. Sallet, but you might have more credibility if your religion at least showed some respect for basic human rights as a fundamental starting point. Then maybe you could take it from there. Let's walk before we run, shall we?)

For conservatives, a discussion of “rights” should always be accompanied by a discussion of “obligations.” Progressives never seem to want to talk about those though. Funny that.

No, no, no ... let's not touch that just yet. Let's leave that lying there to fester for a while. We'll be coming back to it. Trust me.

For conservatives, individual freedoms and rights are important, but we place them in a greater context: what’s best for society? In other words, a conservative will acknowledge "it’s not just about me."

Here, let me translate that for you: While individual freedoms and rights are important, it's important to place them in a greater context: what's best for Catholicism. There -- doesn't that read so much better?

As a Catholic, I really like the Church’s reasoning on some of this.

Ah, yes, more of that free-wheeling marketplace of ideas again. A Catholic publicly agreeing with Church teaching. Boy, we really are living on the edge, aren't we?

For example, on the subject of homosexuals, we believe that unjust discrimination against them is wrong ...

As opposed to ... what? "Just" discrimination? I'm fascinated that you felt the need to qualify that statement. Why couldn't you just come out and say that discrimination against gays is wrong? Oh ... because that would be a little too open-minded, I'm guessing. I'll bet you "personally" have nothing against gays. Why, I'm sure some of your best friends are gay. What a shame they're an abomination, right?

What's more irritating about this statement is how the religiously devout hide behind it like the revolting cowards they are. "Hey," they'll say, "I'm not a closed-minded bigoted homophobe. It's just that the Church demands that I treat gays this way. If it was up to me, hey, no problem. But, you know, Church teaching and all that, what can I do? It's not my fault, is it?" No, it isn't. It never is, is it?

... but that does not mean we affirm homosexual conduct as normal.

And the partaking of wine and wafers and thinking that those things are magically transubstantiated into the blood and body of Christ is your idea of normal? Really?

Progressives in this country have been very successful in eliminating the nuances from our discourse, in favour of a George W. Bush “you’re either fer us or agin us” position.

Let me make sure I understand this -- you're seriously proposing that liberals are responsible for a lack of nuance in public discourse, a la George Bush??? You're blaming liberals for the hardline, uncompromising position taken by modern conservatives? Are you freaking serious?

Progressives have managed to somehow frame the public debate such that avoiding discrimination against individual homosexuals (pensions, hiring, etc.) equates with public affirmation or normalization of homosexuality itself (gay marriage, adoption).

In a posting swimming in asinine statements, that is possibly the most asinine of all. I happen to think that organized religion is utter crap, and yet I support the rights of religious people to not be discriminated against when applying for housing, jobs, etc. I don't have to accept religion as even remotely normal to still believe that religious people should have the same basic rights as everyone else.

See how I distinguish between those two issues, as any non-mentally-retarded dumbfuck should be able to do?

This is simply astounding – and intellectually dishonest. For conservatives, eliminating unjust discrimination can be done without embracing the normalization of homosexual relationships.

See above. Dumbfuck.

In any event, this is getting just plain painful, so let's jump ahead to one more point I want to make. Way back when, Mr. Sallet wrote the following

For conservatives, a discussion of “rights” should always be accompanied by a discussion of “obligations.” Progressives never seem to want to talk about those though. Funny that.

Now, however, he writes:

... if you’re simply incapable of picking yourself up, society has an obligation to provide for your needs (yes, needs not wants – progressives are always mixing those two up!).

Progressives, on the other hand, see this debate as one of “entitlements” – why should person A be allowed to have nicer things or a happier life than person B just because person A is smarter, or works harder or whatever? Progressives would mitigate the “harsher aspects of capitalism” to the point where merit is replaced by entitlement. Conservatives would mitigate only to the point of “due charity” and no further.

So ... on the one hand, we "progressives" never seem to want to talk about "obligations." On the other hand, of course, it's precisely we progressives who talk about exactly those things, to the point where we are accused by wankers like Mr. Sallet of being (what else?) "bleeding-heart liberals."

Why, yes, it's we progressives that are constantly yammering on about how society has (you guessed it) an obligation to make sure everyone has access to clean water, and clean air, and decent housing, and freedom from discrimination, and on and on and tediously on. And yet, mysteriously, according to Mr. Sallet, we never seem to want to talk about obligations, do we? Funny that.

In any case, I think my job here is done. If I wallow in this kind of abject stupidity for too long, I start to develop an urge to watch Canadian Idol or something. Time to bail for some fresh air.

BY THE WAY, Mr. Sallet, while you and your Bible-thumping colleagues have spent an inordinate number of your waking hours appeasing your non-existent deity and happily telling everyone else how they are "abominations" and how they're going straight to hell, why don't you at least give a hat tip to what all of those annoying progressives, out of their sense of societal obligation, have been doing for you?

You're welcome.